


You Can't Explain What You Never Understood In the First Place

by Tooti_Fruity



Series: Understanding Is Half the Battle [1]
Category: Futurama
Genre: Bigotry & Prejudice, Gay Robots, Kind of a crossover, M/M, but not really, fusion fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 12:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8624995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tooti_Fruity/pseuds/Tooti_Fruity
Summary: Bender can't articulate what exactly it is about fusion with Fry that makes him feel the way it does. Bender can't even figure what it DOES make him feel. All he knows is not knowing is confusing and infuriating.But maybe he and Fry can be confusing and infuriating together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on ashartsathing's frender au!

“Why does it matter?”

Bender stood in silence, pondering with his eye shade down as he attempted to sleep despite his whirling thoughts. He simply couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened that day. 

Him and Fry had fused, and once they had fallen apart from the shock, Fry had immediately wanted to do it again. Bender, when he told him that no, they couldn’t, Fry’s first response was to ask why. And he had told him the truth: robots and humans weren’t meant to do that, that they shouldn’t’, and Fry asked why, and he simply said it wasn’t the way things were meant to be and humans and robots were only supposed to fuse with others of their kind.

That was when he had posed a question that Bender had yet to find an answer to; why does it matter if humans and robots fuse? And while he saw nothing morally wrong with the concept, Bender knew Fry was too naïve to understand all the social norms of the 31st century, too oblivious and kind to realize what Bender and the majority of the planet Earth knew: that it was an unspoken rule that humans and robots didn’t fuse.

There was a variety of reasons for this, but the biggest and most obvious one came from the same line of thinking that had people opposing robosexual marriage; most organic beings, aliens and humans alike, considered robots inherently inferior and as little more than something to make their lives easier. And while Bender was arguably less compliant and more independent than the majority of robots he knew, he simply couldn’t escape the reality that most people would always see him as a tool to be used and thrown away when he became outdated. It wasn’t something he had hoped to ever change, and he had long accepted his lot in life as part of a servant class and the philosophy his kin held; robots don’t fuse with humans because humans are just better by default.

But Fry had always been different. From day one, he had viewed Bender both as his own person and as a friend, and without any agenda of his own, he had come to consider him family. He didn’t see Bender as something he could use and exploit; he saw him as an equal, and he valued his life as much as any human or alien. It was something he had always loved most about his friend, and it was the reason he had sworn to protect him in the event that robots did take over the Earth and finally fulfill their promise to “kill all humans”. 

Fry lacked the context needed to consider robots beneath him; he simply found them cool and important because he saw no reason to believe otherwise. And Fry is what gave Bender the will the live; he represented the notion that maybe, just maybe, not all humans were so bad. And despite his scathing comments otherwise, he would die before he’d change a single thing about this friend. 

Bender, considering all of this, still believed the bad outweighed the good in regards to fusing again. The amount of backlash they would receive, particularly Fry for fusing with someone socially beneath him, would be staggering. There was also the notion that Fry might come to find out that he was higher on the social food chain than Bender and abandon him, despite the fact that he had told Bender just last night how much he loved him and loved being with him and sharing a life with him, despite how repulsively domestic it was for their tastes.

No, it was better for them to stay separated, at least in this regard. Bender knew this…

Now if he could only convince himself it was the truth.

~~~~~~~~~

It was nearly noon the next day before Bender booted up; grabbing a beer, he plopped down on the couch and stole the remote from his half naked roommate.

“Hey!” shouted Fry indignantly. Bender gave an evil laugh.

“Shut up, meatbag,” Fry rolled his eyes, but he made no attempt to steal the remote back.

They remained in a comfortable silence for several minutes, finally settling on watching an All My Circuits marathon, when Fry suddenly broke through the quiet.

“Bender, I think we need to talk about what happened last night,” Bender tensed.

And there it was.

Bender remained silent for a long moment, his face neutral as he struggled to find the right words. He finally settled on a tired, “Fine. But make it quick, the commercials are almost over, skintube,” Fry seemed relieved at his compliance and hesitantly began.

“Look, I’m sorry about what happened. And I understand if you don’t…want to be around me anymore Bender. I just wanted the chance to apologize for not asking you first,” The whole time Fry said this, his eyes were firmly fixed on the floor. “And I’m sort of new to this whole fusion thing, and I’m sorry I’ve never done it before,” 

If Bender had eyebrows, he would be raising them. Had he really been Fry’s first? In hindsight, it made sense; Fry seemed incredibly embarrassed about the whole thing, just like a virgin who was discussing sex after a torrid one night stand. 

Bender immediately tried to push the sex analogy from his mind; he didn’t like the feeling of taking someone’s virginity without asking first, especially someone he cared about so much.

“Fry, I’m…sorry,” he muttered in a rare moment of genuineness. “I just wish your first time fusing had actually meant something,” Fry stared at him, his face unreadable.

“So…you’re saying it didn’t mean anything? That you wish it hadn’t had happened?” Fry said this with resignation and a hint of what may have been dejection. Bender felt a wave of confusion wash over him.

“Of course it meant something to me. You’re…” He almost said “the only person I actually care about”, but he caught himself just in time. “…alright. For a human,” He tried to say this with an air of nonchalance, but found himself failing to do so. Fry glanced at him in surprise.

“So…you’re saying it meant something to you?” Bender nodded. “And it meant something to me too, obviously. So...” Fry trailed off. Bender waited a beat for him to continue, and when he didn’t, he became annoyed.

“Spit it out meatbag,” he grunted, taking a long gulped from his beer. Fry considered this for a moment.

“So, let’s fuse again,” he finally said. 

Bender spit out his drink, choking on what didn’t spray all over the floor. He turned to Fry, eyes wide.

“Are you nuts? Fry, you can’t be serious!” Fry gaped at him.

“Why the hell not? We liked being fused, and it was fun, so it only makes sense to do it again,” he reasoned. Bender shook his head.

“We can’t,” Fry’s face fell, and God, he had on that one expression Bender couldn’t say no to. 

“Do you not want to fuse with me because I’m inexperienced?” Fry muttered. 

“No, it’s not that,” Fry glanced at him again.

“Why am I not good enough? Is it because I’m human?” Bender fell silent. 

That was all the conformation Fry needed. 

“I thought you were okay with being with humans, Bender! You told me you liked being with me even though I was a human. I can’t believe you don’t-” And before he could continue, Bender finally decided he had had enough.

“Goddamnit Fry, you’re not the one who’s not good enough!” It only took a few seconds of watching Fry’s widen for Bender to slap a hand over his mouth, because that was not what he had intended to say.

“Why wouldn’t you be good enough, Bender? You’re so much…” He paused, balling up his fists in frustration as he failed to find a way to say how he really felt. “You’re so cool! You always know where to find the best drinks, and you’re good with words, and you always get all the ladies, and…and you taught me how to shave!” Fry trailed off for a moment, before continuing. “You taught me how to shave. You watch out for me. You’re my best friend, and you’re way better at this relationship stuff than I am,” 

If Bender had a heart, it might have stopped. What had he ever done to deserve someone like Fry in his life?

“Fry, you…you had to have noticed by now,” he murmured. “Robots and humans…aren’t on the same level. You’re probably the only human who truly doesn’t see robots as inferior. Fucking and dating and marriage are one thing, but fusion…that’s a whole other game. Robots aren’t meant to fuse with humans. Hell, until last night, I didn’t even think it was possible,” Fry’s mouth fell open.

“Bender, I…I like fusing with you. I want to be with you. The last few months of us being…together,” His face heated when he said the last part. “have been great. And…I don’t care what other people think of robots and humans fusing, because we’re not robots and humans, we’re Bender and Fry, and we just make sense together. So…” Fry stood and extended his hand to Bender, looking both bashful and eager at the same time. “will you please shut up and fuse with me?” And God, when Fry gave him that look, he just couldn’t say no. 

Bender took his hand. “Okay,” he relented.

Their dance was awkward and stilted, and Fry had virtually no sense of rhythm or timing, and Bender never knew where to put his hands, but when he took Fry by the waist and dipped him, bringing him back up into a smoldering kiss, which was more like a human kissing a cold steel plate than an actual press of lips like Fry was used to, he felt their bodies mesh together perfectly, and they were one.

They looked down at their four arms and felt their face with all the tenderness they could manage. 

“This is so weird…” he murmured. He stumbled through the apartment, still attempting to get the hang of his new form and failing miserably, and eventually, he made it into the bathroom, glancing in the mirror for the very first time.

He looked weird. That was his first observation; despite the warm, tender flesh of his face, the place where Fry’s human eyes normally resided was replaced with Bender’s eye panel. He also noted that, even though he had Bender’s eyes, the normally iris-lacking pupils of Bender’s eye bulbs had a layer of brilliant baby blue surrounding them. His body was a strange amalgam of metal and soft, pale skin, with two sets of arms, one of which was distinctly robotic and the other of which was definitely human. It seemed, also, that for every trait one contributed to his form, the other also contributed one as well. He had Bender’s chest compartment, which was lined with circuits and wires, but he also had Fry’s hair and most of his facial features. And, he noted as his face flushed, while he lacked Bender’s antenna, he, without a doubt, had Fry’s human equivalent downstairs. 

“This is…new. Weird,” the part of him that was made of Fry murmured. Just as quickly as he said it, however, the other responded with a frantic,

“We can stop if you like, baby,” He shook his own head.

“Bender, I never said it was a bad thing. I like this. I want to stay like this,” he assured himself aloud. There was a beat of hesitation before Bender replied through him.

“If you’re sure, meatbag…I think that’s not a bad idea” This time, it was Fry who smiled through him.

“How long should we stay together?” he whispered. Bender considered this within him, and finally responded,

“As long as it feels right,” Frender laughed aloud, hugging his chubby, fleshy waist gently with his robotic arms. 

“I love you, Bender,” he muttered, bringing his skin covered hands up to cup his own face.

“Yeah, yeah, meatbag, everyone does,” he grumbled, just as soon at the other’s words had left his mouth.

Frender could feel within himself what Bender really meant. He knew Fry didn’t need to hear him say the same thing he did aloud; he could feel it in Bender’s actions, in the way he looked at him, in the way they both spent months pining and hoping and living in a way that was entirely unique to them. 

Suddenly, he gasped excitedly.

“Bender, do you think we could get drunk twice as fast like this?” He felt the other consider this, and he gave an evil laugh that could only be Bender’s.

“Only one way to find out, fleshtube,”

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuses this time; I just really wanted to write a fusion fic.


End file.
